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Navajo Late Classic Moki Style Serape

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:20,000.00 USD Estimated At:80,000.00 - 120,000.00 USD
Navajo Late Classic Moki Style Serape
<B>Classic Navajo Moki Style Man's Serape from the Fred Harvey Collection</B></I><BR>Circa 1870<BR>Length 73 1/2 in. Width 53 in.<BR><BR>This striking wearing blanket features a unique pattern composed of full and halved serrated diamonds, each enclosing a colorful checkerboard design, and overlaying the fine Moki striped ground. The design is accented by two narrow strips of elongated parallelograms across the center and narrow white end bands. "While almost all classic and late classic Moki serapes are divided into horizontal zones, this Moki conforms to the classic format at work in Navajo bayeta serapes and poncho serapes: there is an overall design built around a central diamond, and each design element connects and extends the elements adjacent to it. The presence of checkered design motifs within the serrated diamonds is unique to this example, and echoes the plaid designs at work in historic Hopi bachelor blankets and prehistoric Anasazi ceramic ware."1<BR>The yarns in this weaving are as follows: The dark reds are raveled bayeta, dyed with a combination of both lac and cochineal, measuring 5% lac and 95% cochineal (Dye analysis was provided by David Wenger, Ph.D.); the pinks are the same raveled bayeta recarded and respun with white to make pink; the blues are handspun dyed with indigo; the whites and browns are undyed handspun; and the green is handspun dyed with combinations of indigo and vegetal dyes.<BR>"Moki, or Moqui, is a term the Spanish used to identify Hopi Indians, and both the Hopi and the Zuni also wove this style of blanket."2 Moki style blankets are well illustrated in the literature. Thirty examples are illustrated by Nancy Blomberg in <I>Navajo Textiles: The William Randolph Hearst Collection.</B></I> Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988, pp. 147-180 (pp. 147-180). The author states: "First proposed by Mera in 1948, the term banded background is obviously descrip